New York City Eisteddfod Chair

Working in the enquiries section of the National Library of Wales can be very interesting and rewarding, though sadly we can’t always help everyone overcome all the brick walls they might encounter in their research.  Recently we received an enquiry from America, where someone wanted to know what a particular person had done in order to be awarded the Chair at the New York City Eisteddfod in 1886, as the Chair in question was still in the family.
The National Library of Wales is fortunate in having a wealth of material relating to Welsh communities beyond the borders of Wales, whether that be merely across Offa’s Dyke in England, or further afield in Australia, North America, and even Patagonia in Argentina.  In this instance we actually hold a notebook that was kept by Henry Blackwell (1851-1928), Secretary of the 1886 New York City Eisteddfod, which records the names and pseudonyms of many of the competitors (NLW MS. 5943A), as well as a small collection of the actual compositions submitted for various competitions at the Eisteddfod (NLW MS. 5944E). 

This last group of documents also includes copies of the printed programme for the Eisteddfod, which revealed that a fine “Oak Chair”, together with a prize of $50.00, was given by a Lewis H. Williams, and was to be awarded for an Awdl or Pryddest (forms of strict and free metre poetry in Welsh) on the subject of “Trydaniaeth” (Electricity).  However, upon consulting Henry Blackwell’s notebook, it transpired that no entries were, in fact, received for this particular competition.  Indeed, in an article on the ‘New York City Eisteddfod’ that appeared in The Cambrianfor March 1886, it was reported that “The chief Prize in both prose and poetry failed to draw out the efforts of the literati”, going on to say that “Electricity, from its novelty, probably stunned the bards.”  As the Chair of the 1886 New York City Eisteddfod was not apparently won that year, how it came to be in the enquirer’s family is, therefore, rather a mystery.